fatduck wrote:well, you go to CLS, so it's not that surprising. many of your professors are inexperienced and unable to get into the really challenging nuances of the law. students at HYS have to work a lot harder to succeed because their professors require a deeper understanding of legal practice.

ohhh. you sound fun.

ohhh. you sound lame.

? Didn't realize fatduck was joking, and there are some posters who really are this prickish. i "get" it now.

APimpNamedSlickback wrote:op, i dont think you did that well at cls without having put substantial time in. i did well at harvard, and it took a ridiculous amount of studying. and i dont spin my wheels or waste time either. there was just alot to do.

so i call bullshit: unless you had no profs with weird quirks or heavily policy focus (doubtful), i doubt you simply walked into a room with a bunch of columbia kids and just smoked them.

on another note i also doubt that whatever "natural ability" that people talk about for law, to the extent it exists at all, is some inherent ability. its really more about thinking in a nitpicky systematic way. and that really is learnable: i think that any intelligent person, can in fact grind their way into the top 10% at almost any school, provided they study efficiently. we arent talking about rocket science here.

i'd bet my life savings that the valedictorian at any t1 school would absolutely kill a black letter exam at harvard.

You can't possibly be that socially retarded OP. What exactly is the point of your post? To brag about how smart you are? To insult everyone who didn't find it as easy as you? To share an observation of yours in complete ignorance of how arrogant and conceded you sound? Grow some social sense dude. Though I guess you wont find that quite so "easy"

kaiser wrote:You can't possibly be that socially retarded OP. What exactly is the point of your post? To brag about how smart you are? To insult everyone who didn't find it as easy as you? To share an observation of yours in complete ignorance of how arrogant and conceded you sound? Grow some social sense dude. Though I guess you wont find that quite so "easy"

A persual through the OP's post history brings up some interesting statements:

kaiser wrote:You can't possibly be that socially retarded OP. What exactly is the point of your post? To brag about how smart you are? To insult everyone who didn't find it as easy as you? To share an observation of yours in complete ignorance of how arrogant and conceded you sound? Grow some social sense dude. Though I guess you wont find that quite so "easy"

A persual through the OP's post history brings up some interesting statements:

kaiser wrote:You can't possibly be that socially retarded OP. What exactly is the point of your post? To brag about how smart you are? To insult everyone who didn't find it as easy as you? To share an observation of yours in complete ignorance of how arrogant and conceded you sound? Grow some social sense dude. Though I guess you wont find that quite so "easy"

A persual through the OP's post history brings up some interesting statements:

kswiss wrote:I think that the grades are EXTREMELY merit based, and far less arbitrary than UG. The problem that people have is not figuring out what it takes to get the "merit" in LS. It isn't being prepared for class, making sure the teacher likes you, doing well in group presentations, or spending hours spinning wheels. The merit is writing good law exams. I think people get pissed because they work hard as hell all semester, but they'll tell you straight out that they suck at taking tests. Well, no amount of re-reading the cases is going to fix that...

I did VERY well first semester and I agree that grades are merit-based. I guess I just don't necessarily have enough confidence to assume that I smoked my classmates until after it actually happened. If I end up with the same grades as I did first semester, then by all means I'll totally agree with you. My point is more that I have no clue how my classmates did and it's more that uncertainty that bothers me rather than "arbitrary" grading or anything like that. Hence the mindfuck.

Even if one agrees that grades are merit based, they're still not a good indication of who will make a good lawyer in most areas of law.

After first year, there should be more performance based grading in law school, with the performance being closer to the actual practice of law rather than exams. Law schools still stick by the notion that issue spotting and essay writing is a better indication of who will make a good prosecutor (for example) than having people use oratory skills, an area which the over whelming majority of law schools refuse to grade on a curve. I have a pretty good idea of why, but that's a subject for a different post.

(note: I did well enough to get biglaw summer employment in my market of choice, so I'm by no means bitter at the grading process, but I recognize that it's pretty fuck asinine and bragging about it without perspective makes one a pretty big dbag).

glitter178 wrote:i will say that everyone is going to call you out for being a troll. however, i hope people like you do exist, because it at helps (albeit slightly) to balance out the doomsday prophecies of others.

Did you work a lot in undergrad and/ or after? I always wonder about the backgrounds of those who had an easy go of 1 L.

It should scare you more. Because the correlation between hard work and success in law school isn't that high. Hard-work is neither necessary nor sufficient for success.

You can't gun your way to good grades. That's not to say that hard work doesn't help, but it's like playing a game of pickup basketball with friends. There are people who play everyday and still suck. There are people who never play but are good. And there are people who are good and practice.

There are people who can work all semester, puting in hundreds upon hundreds of hours and get a B. And there are people who can print out someone elses outline, spend 10 hours looking at it, then rock out an A-.

The kicker is that damn near everyone seems just as smart as each other.

Everything about law, is about marking it artificially harder. There is really no other reason to have horse race issue spotters.

jdhonest wrote:Even if one agrees that grades are merit based, they're still not a good indication of who will make a good lawyer in most areas of law.

After first year, there should be more performance based grading in law school, with the performance being closer to the actual practice of law rather than exams. Law schools still stick by the notion that issue spotting and essay writing is a better indication of who will make a good prosecutor (for example) than having people use oratory skills, an area which the over whelming majority of law schools refuse to grade on a curve. I have a pretty good idea of why, but that's a subject for a different post.

(note: I did well enough to get biglaw summer employment in my market of choice, so I'm by no means bitter at the grading process, but I recognize that it's pretty fuck asinine and bragging about it without perspective makes one a pretty big dbag).

I actually agree with all of this. I just think that for 1L all of the classes should be graded on the same thing because otherwise the curve is meaningless. I'm glad that I am a good test taker, because I realize that it has nothing to do with the actual practice of law. However if you are going to put every 1L student on the same curve, you'd either have to give them all the same professors or do what they do: test the same singular skill. Otherwise 1Ls would be at the mercy of who they are assigned as profs, and distinctions in class rank would be determined on the luck of being matched to a teacher that assigned value to your particular skills. Not that this doesn't happen in the current system, but at least all of the 1L students are taking anonymously graded exams that are basically the same format to get their grades. I can't imagine how there could be a fair grading system if 1 torts prof did an issue spotter and another did a semester long litigation project or something with 50 assignments.

I'm all for changing it up after 1L when students can chose their profs, but I also think that schools would probably change this if legal hiring shifted to later in the LS career. 1L is designed to create some kind of meaningful distinction between the students. It is not very good at this, but I can't think of a better way to do it.

Also: I think that this type of conversation would be extremely douchey in real life. However, this is an internet message board. Most 0L's are told that LS is killer and extremely difficult. If I polled all of my friends, they would probably say that it actually was easier and more satisfying than they expected, if only because everyone is so hyperbolic when speaking about it before we started. If I overheard the OP (or myself) in real life I'd think they were a DB, but this is kind of what internet message boards are for. No need to call out the OP for bragging about doing well openly, while deftly stating that you also did extremely well.

I'd never say in this real life cause I know alot of people struggle in law school. I mean the curve guarantees that someone will be at the bottom. But I just wanted to see if there were others who felt the game was easy to beat.

This past semester I barely spent anytime in the library and only read the cases right before classes. Used old outlines and didn't use a single hornbook. Still felt that I had a better grasp of the material than last semester when I studied more and actually tried to use hornbooks.

After taking the first round of exams I realized what a waste of time they were.

liLtuneChi wrote:So I just got done with 1L year. After all the hype I must say it didn't live up to it. I was able to get by just fine (~top 10% at CLS) without exerting too much energy or stress. Didn't really use any hornbooks or supplements. Didn't even make my own outlines half the time. The material was pretty easy and the exams were as well.

I actually enjoyed the whole semester and wouldn't mind doing it again. Even taking the exams was kinda fun.

Am I alone or are there other people who felt the same way?

I wonder how much the fact that you ended up being top 10% at CLS is coloring the fondness you have about your first year...

liLtuneChi wrote:I'd never say in this real life cause I know alot of people struggle in law school. I mean the curve guarantees that someone will be at the bottom. But I just wanted to see if there were others who felt the game was easy to beat.

This past semester I barely spent anytime in the library and only read the cases right before classes. Used old outlines and didn't use a single hornbook. Still felt that I had a better grasp of the material than last semester when I studied more and actually tried to use hornbooks.

After taking the first round of exams I realized what a waste of time they were.

Elaborate plz. How did you know bll wout reading cases or supps.

Also how did youknow hot to write exams so well? And isthere any secrets you can share? Tyia

liLtuneChi wrote:I'd never say in this real life cause I know alot of people struggle in law school. I mean the curve guarantees that someone will be at the bottom. But I just wanted to see if there were others who felt the game was easy to beat.

This past semester I barely spent anytime in the library and only read the cases right before classes. Used old outlines and didn't use a single hornbook. Still felt that I had a better grasp of the material than last semester when I studied more and actually tried to use hornbooks.

After taking the first round of exams I realized what a waste of time they were.

Elaborate plz. How did you know bll wout reading cases or supps.

Also how did youknow hot to write exams so well? And isthere any secrets you can share? Tyia

I read the cases. I just read them like a few hours before class rather than the last night. That way the material was fresh in my mind going into class. Then I have the old outlines from past years so I kinda know what the prof is gonna focus on. I then pay attention real close in class so I can grasp all the main points. If there isn't a single point in that days lesson I don't feel I've mastered I make sure I go to the profs office hours.

Law exams once you take one is pretty easy. The mistake most people make is they feel that mastery of the class material is sufficient to getting an A. That isn't true. You can know everything in the class and still get a B. However, knowing (almost) everything is necessary to getting an A. The second factor you need to get an A is know how to express that knowledge in writing. Alot of people can't do that.

I think the thing that helped me was about 2/3 through the first semester I hit a eureka moment where the big conceptual picture of each class came into focus for me. What I noticed was how everything we were learning fit together. And from that I was able to build a mental outline on how to attack any general issue spotter for each class. I don't know how to describe it but to write a strong exam answer you have to be able to not only spot the issues but to take the reader down your line of reasoning on why your answer is the right answer. Whether the answer is really right doesn't matter but showing the prof you see every relevant fact and are able to weave it together into a cogent legal framework is the key.

I kinda lied when I said I didn't make my own outlines. I never made a real outline, you know the 50-70 page course review outlines most everyone makes. But I did make short "attack" outlines that were no more than 2-3 pages that I used just as topic headers so I can remember all the important concepts from the class.

The key to making an A on the law school exam is being able to weave EVERY relevant fact in the prof's fact pattern into you legal analysis. You legal analysis needs also be organized into the proper structure from the most important issues to the least important so that you can show the reader you know what issues the question they asked most depends on.

liLtuneChi wrote:So I just got done with 1L year. After all the hype I must say it didn't live up to it. I was able to get by just fine (~top 10% at CLS) without exerting too much energy or stress. Didn't really use any hornbooks or supplements. Didn't even make my own outlines half the time. The material was pretty easy and the exams were as well.

I actually enjoyed the whole semester and wouldn't mind doing it again. Even taking the exams was kinda fun.